Teen Counseling

The teen years are often filled with pressure from peers to fit in and from parents to achieve. This may be the same as what you remember when you were a teenager but things have also changed a lot since parents and grandparents were teens.

Now a teenager’s world is online and they often lack the social skills needed to navigate the real world and are disconnected from others. They are trying to find themselves and differentiate themselves from their family while being bombarded with negative images on media.

At the same time they are experiencing hormonal changes that affect their emotional stability and moods and their prefrontal cortex (the decision making part of the brain) is still not fully developed. All of this combined can make them feel overwhelmed and out of control at times.

Teenagers often find maladaptive ways to cope with their stress such as self-injuring, drug and alcohol use, withdrawing, disordered eating, breaking the rules/ law, and/or striving for perfection and over-achievement or find themselves overwhelmed with symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Let’s face it, no matter how fair, caring, and supportive a parent is, in the eyes of their child they are still their parent and therefore they have a hard time hearing what they have to say. Counseling can help teens by providing them with a non-judgmental adult to talk things over with. We focus on teaching teens appropriate coping and life skills, helping them identify their goals and making a plan to reach them, and to see how they can change their thoughts and behaviors for better results.

Does my Teen Need Counseling?

This can often be a difficult question to answer. Most people can benefit from counseling by learning more adaptive ways of dealing with every day life. If your teen is engaging in any behaviors that worry you or are requesting counseling than please bring them in for a session so we can better determine if they would benefit from services. Many times we hear about parent/teen relationships that are tumultuous, at times like these it may be beneficial for us to see any combination of parent and/or child.

No matter if your teenager is a high achiever with anxiety and/or depression, is a good child who went down the wrong path, has body image issues, is questioning their sexuality, or is troubled and getting in trouble with the law, or anything in between, WE HAVE A COUNSELOR THAT CAN HELP!